


A Song of Fire and Blood

by Elentori



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Dragon!Keith, M/M, klance, nokken!lance, roll initiative
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-03-18 18:57:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13687761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elentori/pseuds/Elentori
Summary: Keith always knew the world would end in fire, he just assumed he’d be the one causing it.Aka: Elentori finally writes something for dragonborn!Keith and Nøkken!Lance.





	A Song of Fire and Blood

Keith always knew the world would end in fire, he just assumed he’d be the one causing it. Lance looks worried, he’s screaming something in his face and trying to drag him off the road while haphazardly throwing water spells at the burning chaos engulfing them. Keith notices the limp as Lance moves away from him and supposes a furnace isn’t the best place for a water spirit. He needed to end this now, he’s not even sure why they came in the first place. No human village was worth both their lives. 

A piercing cry shatters the silence and brings him back to reality. Ah yes, the black dragon. Where Lotor even found the damned beast is beyond him but, it’s proving just as hard to kill as the books said it would be. He had to admit though, there was something beautiful about watching a creature the size of a house weave through the sky so effortlessly like some great winged fish. The stones beneath his feet are hot with ash and embers and he follows Lance into a nearby store before the dragon can spot them in the alley. His eyes quickly adjust to the darkness inside and he’s alarmed to find several small children huddled under a table--Shiro and the rest of the Royal Guard were supposed to have this sector cleared already. 

‘Keith,’ Lance says, eying the children. It’s a question and a plea.

‘I thought you were supposed to eat humans not save them,’ Keith says with a sigh. 

Of course Lance doesn’t want to leave them behind, but they aren’t exactly equipped to deal with this right now either. Keith notices the boy up front is a bit older than the rest and kneels down before him. The child’s eyes widen in fear and Keith quickly raises his hands to calm him.

‘Do you know where the north gate is from here?’ Keith asks. 

The boy nods. Keith slowly takes a small knife from his belt and offers it to him. He and Lance both know it won’t amount to much against what they’re fighting but they have minutes before this building will be consumed with dragon fire and they need to move as soon as possible. 

‘Take this and head for the gate as soon as we leave this building ok?’ 

‘But the dragon!’ A young girl cries out peeking from behind his shoulder.

‘Oh you let us worry about the dragon princess,’ Lace says with a smirk, making a show of twirling some water around him. Keith wishes he’d stop showing off, water is a scarce resource here, but the trick has the desired effect and the children’s eyes are wide with awe. 

Keith feels the dragon coming before he hears it, a light pull in his gut and a brief sensation of pain and anger wash over him. He feels like he’s flying. 

‘OK time to move NOW!’ Keith shouts, shoving the kids from under the table towards the back door then turning around to chase after Lance who’s already bolted out the front door as a diversion. He follows the quickly evaporating trail of water down the alley and around a few turns before spotting Lance running towards a town fountain, blue robes billowing behind him. The water from it rises up to meet him in a swirl of large droplets and blue light.

A deep roar brings Keith to a stop. His stomach drops, a sensation of falling. He looks up in time to see the dragon dive off one of the tall spires and come barreling straight for them. He draws his blades from his back and mentally reaches out to the twin fire elementals bound within them, asking for help. He feels their excitement and energy as they dance around in his hands eager for another kill, their steady warmth an old comfort. Before he knows it the dragon is upon them in a flash of fire and brimstone, this close Keith can see the runed binding seals burned into the beasts neck, ancient magic he’s not sure how Lotor knew how to perform in the first place or at what cost. 

It’s clear the creature is in pain, and Keith feels sympathy for what he knows he and Lance must do. As if on queue an explosion of ice runs along the ground and captures one of the dragons wings, it won’t hold long but Keith doesn’t need long to scale the side of the building closest to the dragon and make a jump for it’s back. Using his slender blades as anchors in the thick armored hide Keith manages to land and secure himself seconds before it breaks free of the ice and makes a jump back into the sky, leaving a fresh trail of fire in its wake and Keith has to trust Lance is strong enough to survive that on his own. 

Several deep gashes from past attempts litter the dragon's neck, he has to get it this time; Lance is dehydrated and his own legs and arms have taken quite a beating. His goal is a soft spot around the side of the neck, if he can get under the scales there he should be able to hit a major vein and at least ground the beast long enough for the Guard to finish it off. Unfortunately, the archers proved pretty worthless when it came to dragon slaying. However, in their defense there hasn’t been a dragon in these parts for several hundred years, it wasn’t exactly pheasant hunting.

Keith channels more magic into his blades to unlock their full potential, using one for stability and the other to swing around and strike the worn down area of scales. Below him the dragon spits fire upon the Royal Guard soldiers locked in combat with Lotor’s ground forces. The cries of burning men reach his ears, the smell of cooked flesh fills his nose and chokes him. He slashes harder. The dragon wails and flips around mid-air but not before one final blow finally pierces through the hide and sinks deep into flesh. A wave of scarlet covers his hand and rains down on the men below. Keith clings on for dear life as the dragon twists around and falls, trying to get him off it’s back and losing its own coordination in the process. They spiral towards the burning city and he braces himself as they fall, the tall towers reaching out to meet him.

...

Lance runs through the streets as quickly as his blistered feet will carry him, trying to keep an eye on the dragon above as it weaves around buildings and finally out further to where the war is. With his inhuman eyesight he’s able to just barely make out the shape of Keith still clinging to it’s back, so far so good. Suddenly, his leg buckles beneath him and he falls to the ground cursing. Keith could handle the heat, but for Lance it was a very real death sentence. Who ever heard of a Nøkken running around in a fire anyway? Lance laments ever leaving his pond and not for the first time today wishes he was half Dracon like Keith. Keith had tried to get him to sit this one out of course, but like hell that was going to happen. 

He eyes another fountain nearby and drags himself over to it, the water is low and dirty but anything is better than burning alive at this point. He calls it up to him and douses himself, using a bit more magic to reinforce his wounded leg before getting back to his feet and looking for the dragon again. He hears it in the distance and it sounds pissed so Keith must be doing something right. Then he sees it burst from behind one of the towers nearby and the full extent of the shitstorm happening becomes rapidly apparent. 

The dragon is falling. 

Which is great but he realizes they hadn’t actually gotten much further in their plan than this, Keith was strong but that was one hell of a fall and they were coming in fast. In a beautiful trail of black smoke and golden embers the great beast crashes to earth, the impact once again sending Lance to his knees and causing several buildings to collapse around him. They’re only a few streets over and Lance begins picking his way over the rubble towards them, mentally going over every healing spell he knew and wishing he’d studied more when he had the time.

When he arrives at the scene there’s so much smoke in the air he can’t even see the dragon let alone Keith, but he charges in anyway. He’s lucky he finds Keith first, he’d been thrown from the dragon’s back and appears to be unconscious in the rubble, or so Lance convinces himself. The pain barely registers as Lance runs across the burning courtyard to him. He uses the last of the water he’d been carrying to heal a particularly nasty looking gash down Keith’s cheek and neck , trying to wake him up. From what he can see, everything else appears to be in one piece. 

After a few minutes Keith finally starts to open his eyes, but Lance’s joy is quickly overshadowed by fear when the sound of heavy scales being drug across stone fills the courtyard before him. Through the lingering smoke a large shape begins to form and the dull glow of the Dragons belly and mouth can be seen. The instant the dragon roars Keith’s eyes fully open and he’s on his feet faster than Lance can process. Keith had been weird ever since they saw the dragon two days ago but seeing them both together like this, Lance almost feels like he’s intruding on something. The fire in Keith’s eyes matches the fire in the dragon's eyes, and it’s there, standing before the great beast itself, Lance finally sees Keith for the part Dragonblood he is. 

…

Keith’s head swims as he stands. He senses Lance behind him and he’s glad they’re back together, Lance’s presence helps calm the torrent of feelings he’s getting from the dragon before him. The creature regards him with a wary eye, tired and slowly bleeding out. Keith can feel it’s pain and confusion, and a small part of acceptance. Something else too, a darker presence unlike the dragon, and the longer they stand there the louder it gets. Keith feels the pull again as the dragon slowly rises, and despite it’s torn wings and bloody scales he stands in awe.

Kill him.

The new voice startles Keith and he almost doesn’t react quick enough to dodge the incoming dragon claw, luckily Lance is still paying attention and they both dive out of the way in time. Keith realizes the voice must have been Lotor somehow, and they need to kill the dragon quickly before reinforcements can arrive. 

It feels wrong, the first dragon he’s ever met must also die at his hands. He’d spent so much time desperately searching for them as a child, so many years pouring over old dragon lore books. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. If only he knew how to reverse the binding runes perhaps he could save both the city and the dragon, but he doesn’t have that kind of time, and as much as he’d like to he can’t let Altea fall into Lotor’s hands. Keith has no love for humans but Shiro would defend this city to the death, and he has no intention of standing by while his only brother perishes.

With fresh resolve Keith picks up his blades from the ground where they’d fallen and turns to face the beast. He begins muttering ancient words under his breath to coax the twin elementals to join together, to merge their power into a single blade fit for a dragonslayer, and in a flash of brilliant golden light his two smaller daggers unite into one fiery longsword. 

‘Lance, get somewhere safe now,’ Keith says, placing himself between the two.

‘Like hell I’m going to…’

‘Lance you’re shit in fire and now’s really not the time for a pissing contest.’

Lance rolls his eyes but backs up towards some stone rubble regardless. He used the last of the water he had healing Keith and without another source, using water magic now could kill him and Keith knows that.

The dragon limps a bit then lunges forward again. Keith dodges the blow and rolls away from where Lance is, trying to divert it’s attention. His own body won’t last much longer and he looks for a way to end the fight quickly. If he can get up through the dragon's mouth into the brain, he could kill it in one blow. But that would mean briefly tolerating dragon fire. He’s not sure if he can. He looks down at his slightly reddened hands. Being part Dracon gave him a higher tolerance to flame than any human, but dragon flame wasn’t something he’d exactly had an opportunity to test before.

He takes a deep breath and centers himself. The sun has begun to set and the flaming buildings cast a pleasant glow on the darkening smoke filled sky. It’s oddly calming, now that he’s away from all the screaming. He makes eye contact with the dragon as they slowly circle each other. Dragons aren’t stupid, it probably notices just how powerful the blade Keith wields is, one of them will die tonight. Keith braces himself for the next lunge, there will be no dodging this time, and quick as a snake the dragon is upon him. Keith sees the jaws of death open, sees the fire billow up from the depths of the beast, plants his feet firmly on the ground and rolls the dice. 

It’s over in a matter of seconds but feels like hours. The pain is unlike anything he’s ever felt before, it consumes him and burns him to the core. In the distance, he can hear Lance freaking out and thinks at least, that’s a pretty good sign he’s not dead. Something heavy is pressed against his right side and he turns to come face to face with the great dragon itself. His arm is still desperately clutching the sword that has impaled itself up through the roof of the dragon’s mouth into its brain, and his arm...he looks away. He’ll worry about his arm later. 

For the first time in days the emotions he was being fed from the dragon are silent and he mourns their loss. But the pull, the pull is still there deep in his gut and growing stronger, thousands of nauseating butterflies moving up to his heart trying to escape. The feeling is suffocating. In confusion, Keith releases the sword and tries to stand, favoring his good side. Lance is by him in a second.

‘Keith, Keith what’s happening?’ Lance asks.

He sounds frantic and that confuses Keith. The dragon is dead, hasn’t enough happened today already? He just wants to sleep off this headache. He moves to rub his head and stops, eyes growing wide. 

‘Lance, what’s on my head?’ He starts to freak out.

‘Your horns! They’re huge oh my gods your eyes…’

‘What’s wrong with my eyes?’

Keith reaches up with his good hand to rub his eyes only to see a long scaled clawed arm where a relatively normal looking arm should have been. He looks up to Lance for answers but Lance’s eyes are now huge and staring behind him.

‘What is it?’ Keith asks, an edge of panic creeping into his voice. 

‘Wings…’ Lance replies, reaching out with one hand to steady Keith and gingerly touching a wing with the other. It’s leathery and warm and matches the red scales scattered across his cheeks. Keith flinches away from the contact, eyes wide and breathing heavily. Lance notices movement by his feet and decides to mention the tail to Keith later.

‘What the fuck is happening to me?’ Keith asks, feeling up his horns with a horrified expression.

Lance observes him quietly for a moment, the answer on the tip of his tongue but he still can’t believe what’s happening. Logically, it shouldn’t be.

‘I never thought I’d see another one in my lifetime,’ he murmurs.

‘Another what?’ Keith’s eyes focus on him and Lance can’t help the sharp intake of breath seeing the new dragon eyes this close.

‘Dragonborn,’ Lance says simply. 

‘No shit there’s an entire race of Dragonborn Lance.’

‘No not a dragonborn,’ Lance clarifies. ‘I mean the Dragonborn, Dovahkiin. You can control dragons. The last one died centuries ago shortly before the dragons left, she was amazing.’

Lance looks awestruck and not entirely worried so Keith tries to calm down. At least one of them knows what’s going on, he can work with that. Lance begins to say something else when another voice interrupts them.

‘How DARE you,’ Lotor yells, his voice cracking a bit.

He’s furious and looks exhausted. He’d brought the dragon expecting an easy win, not a three day long war. His robes are covered in blood and Keith wonders how many people he’s killed alone. Lotor was a full Dragonborn, and a notoriously ruthless one though few knew why. Whatever the reason, he had a personal vendetta with Altea and now looked ready to kill both Lance and Keith on the spot. Behind him Keith hears the heavy repetitive noise of armored footsteps and recognizes them as his brothers army returning from the field. They must have won then, Keith thinks with a smirk.

…

Lotor sees the army approaching and the full weight of the situation sinks in. He’d been too confident in his own armies abilities, too drunk off the dragons power to be cautious and now he’s paying the price. His dragon is dead and what's left of his armies is probably retreating back into the Waste by now, not that they had much to go back to. Lotor eyes the once lavish city with distaste and takes small comfort in the flames consuming it. Not as much as he’d hoped though, he was supposed to level this town and take back the land that was rightfully his...his peoples. 

His eyes go back to the two figures near Black, one appears relatively human but the other...the other is a sight to behold. He’d been told stories of the Dovahkiin since he was little, every Dragonborn knew the tales and dreamed of the day one would return and bring the dragons back. He’d hoped it would be him, but there’s no doubt in his mind the fiery eyed boy before him has stolen that from him too. 

Lotor swiftly draws his blade and steps towards them, they both look weak from battle and should be easy enough to kill before the army is upon them. To his surprise the human-looking one turns to face him, standing protectively in front of his companion. It’s barely a glimpse but Lotor sees the notched ears hidden in shaggy brown hair.

‘You’re a long way from home, Nøkken,’ Lotor says, still cautiously advancing. 

Nøkken weren’t common and quite powerful under the right conditions, but these were definitely not the right conditions. They needed water to thrive and Lotor was amazed he was even still standing. More importantly, he knew the spells to break one, it was only a matter of time.

…

Lance watches Lotor approach and tries to think of a plan. He’s out of water, low on energy, and every dry breath brings him closer to death. The army is approaching but they are still several blocks away by the sound of it. All he has is a wounded Dovahkiin, one dead dragon, and a lot of blood and fire. 

There is water in blood though...kind of.

Lance grimaces and looks down to his feet where the Dragon’s blood is slowly seeping into the ground around them, eager to return back to the earth from whence it was born. The amount of power needed to control something not pure water would be intense, and not something he could do for very long. But perhaps long enough to buy them time. He knew Lotor was a powerful mage, he’d tamed the dragon after all, and letting him get close could be fatal. 

Taking a deep breath Lance reaches out to the blood around him and wills it to do his bidding, tossing in a few sweetly sung magical words to sweeten the deal, and before Lotor knows what’s happening thousands of tiny blood needles are being thrown at him, piercing the skin where he’d thrown up his hands to protect his face. Before Lotor can retaliate Lance throws up an ice blood wall around them and focuses on keeping it covered in warding magic for as long as he can hold out. 

…

Lotor stumbles back, pulling needles from his arms and tossing a few heat spells on his cloak. He has to admit he’s impressed, he’d never even heard of a Nøkken controlling blood. However, unbeknownst to Lance, he's given Lotor exactly what he needs to complete his spell. For he’s not only thrown dragon’s blood, but some of his own as well. 

…

‘I think I have enough energy to get him if you can daze him with a song,’ Keith says. He’d split the longsword back into two smaller blades and was testing one in his good hand, the non-dominant dragon scaled hand to be exact. His right hand was a hot mess of burns and broken bones and probably shouldn’t even be attached right now.

‘You can’t even stand how on earth are you going to win that fight?’ Lance hisses.

‘I can stand just fine it’s only the arm that’s busted’ Keith says, wiggling his feet in demonstration. Actually, his entire body hurts like hell but he was going to blame that on dragon puberty and deal with it later.

Lance makes a frustrated noise and Keith has to smile at the look on his face. Middle of battle be damned, a concerned Lance was a cute one.

‘If, and only if, he breaks through this wall then I’ll sing,’ Lance finally says. ‘I don’t think it’s going to work well though, we both know he’s dragonborn.’

Keith just nods and readies himself, they don’t exactly have any other options and they only need to hold out for a bit longer. 

Suddenly, fire erupts around them and Lance cries out, throwing all his energy into maintaining the wall, but to no avail. Lotor’s fire spell makes quick work of the ice and through the steam he emerges, book in had and a wicked smile on his face. 

Keith doesn’t know it at the time, but that smile will haunt his dreams for the rest of his life. If there were one event he could change, one moment he could take back, it’s what follows.

Lance, as planned, starts singing loudly and Lotor stumbles a bit. Keith is on his feet and running out to meet him in a matter of seconds, but it’s not fast enough. 

‘I think that’s enough of that, Lancaeron,’ Lotor calls to Lance, and immediately the world falls silent.

Keith stops in confusion and whirls around to look at Lance who’s standing there with a horrified look on his face, slender fingers grasping at his throat. 

At the same time hundreds of soldiers start to pour out from the charred rubble behind them, having finally made their way through the flaming labyrinth. Lotor smirks, his work done. He then turns to Keith. 

‘You’ve taken something precious from me, and I’ve returned the favor. The next time we meet you will die Dovahkiin.’ And with that he turns and disappears into the steam and smoke. 

A few soldiers give chase but Keith knows they won’t catch him, and he’s more concerned with Lance anyway, who’s now holding his head and silently sobbing on the ground. The entire scene strikes a sense of deja vu in him, though the last time this happened Lance was magically silenced, and it had been at Keith’s own hands. He’s by Lance’s side in an instant looking for any piece of iron or silver touching him but can’t find anything. He tries thinking back to what Lotor had said, he’d called Lance ‘Lancaeron’ as if it were his name. Then it clicks, it is Lance’s name, his real one. He’d called him Lance for so long he’d forgotten magical creatures even had real names, but he did remember how much power those names held. Sometimes even death at the mere mention. 

A newfound sense of panic washes over him and he carefully bends down trying to cup lance’s face with his one good hand.

‘Lance, can you hear me?’ Keith asks softly and only slightly hysterical.

A nod.

‘Are you in pain? Or danger?’

Lance hesitates, but shakes his head. 

‘Your voice?’ This time Keith’s words are so quiet even he barely hears them, but Lance nods anyway, finally looking up to meet him eye to eye. And Keith’s heart breaks. Tears are streaming down Lance’s face and he looks so...empty.The sight brings a piece of information to the front of Keith’s mind, something he’d read and forgotten long ago.

To take a Nøkken’s voice, is to take their life itself.

**Author's Note:**

> I ENTER THE HORRIFYING WORLD OF WRITING, will write more when I can :) this au is near and dear to my heart


End file.
